Meet Yacouba Sawadogo – The Man Who Stopped The Desert

In her world-famous novel “The Fountainhead”, Ayn Rand drew the portrait of an ideal man; one who was independent, believed in his vision, and could go to any length to realise it. Before some years, the world met Dashrath Manjhi, and saw the shadow of an ideal man in him. Now, a man from sub-Saharan Africa has emerged to be another great example of Ayn Rand’s vision. Yacouba Sawadogo is an innovative African farmer who has been travelling across the deserts for the last 30 years, reviving ancient reforestation and soil conservation techniques and literally fighting the intimidating deserts.

How he began:
His story dates back to the 1980s when Africa saw one of the worst droughts in its history. During that period, rainfall reduced by a whopping 80%, killing all vegetation and leaving water-bodies parched. Most local people migrated to different places, but Yacouba stayed back. Instead of surrendering to the atrocities of nature, he decided to take control in his own hands and change the face of the land completely.

The Zai miracle:
Being unable to read and write, and with no access to modern techniques and tools, he started to employ an old African farming practice called “Zai”. The practice entails planting seeds in small holes filled with manure and biodegradable waste. The holes fill up with whatever water falls during the rainy season, and is retained in them. This provides moisture and nutrients to the growing plant during the dry periods. Also, the manure attracts termites, whose tunnels help break up the soil further and increase its absorption-capacity.

Once Yacouba started using the Zai technique of plantation, the soil quality started to improve. He initially sowed millet and sorghum, and soon managed to grow trees under which small shrubs and grass flourished. This further enhanced the soil quality in the area. He didn’t keep these methods to himself and started holding meetings with nearby farmers where he would teach them his innovative techniques and learn their own methods of farming.

Reaping the fruits of hard work:
Within two decades of starting his revolutionary work, a forested area of about fifty acres (20 hectares) came up on the semi-arid land of the African desert. Yacouba featured in a 2010 documentary titled ’The Man Who Stopped the Desert’ through which he became known to the rest of the world. Perhaps as a fitting tribute to the man, all the proceedings from the documentary were put into the restoration of local forests and a training program for farmers who wanted to learn Yacouba’s technique. Today, Zai is being widely practiced in the region.

Recently, however, the forested area belonging to Yacouba has been annexed by the nearby city of Ouahigouya which plans to generate revenues from the flora. Yacouba is fighting against the city corporation and raising funds to buy the land back. The Logical Indian salutes his indomitable spirit, and wishes that his endeavour of bringing more and more land under forest cover becomes a mass movement and brings a positive change to the face of the earth.

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Be A True Ally To The Women In Your Life #ShareTheLoad

Women empowerment is one of the most important words of the present times. It is not a mere phrase but it rather represents a movement, which has been pending for the longest time. However, many have a misconception that educating women, “letting” them work, etc. is all that women empowerment is all about. However, the concept of women empowerment is more of an umbrella term. It intends to involve society as a whole, including men.

We always encourage and applaud a woman who successfully balances both work life and her household. But won’t it be easy for that woman if the load of the work is shared? We see that in our society a woman’s primary role is seen as that of a homemaker. At the same time, her personal likes, aspirations, and dreams are forced to be put on the backburner because of the undue expectation that she has to single handedly manage the household while balancing her career. To give credit where it is due, the times are changing. Men and women of the house are increasingly sharing the workload. However, one can also not turn a blind to the fact that a lot more still needs to be done.

Driving home the same concept, popular brand Ariel has come up with brilliant communication.

The video shows a mother speaking to her married daughter over the phone, all whilst cleaning the mess her son has created. She is absolutely heartbroken when her daughter says that she plans to quit her job since juggling both a demanding job and her household has become too overwhelming. It is during this time that she realises that while she and her husband as parents left no stone unturned to give an all-round upbringing to their daughter, they somewhere forgot to teach their son some basic life skills like cooking and doing laundry so that they grow out to be equally responsible in doing household chores. This is not a story of just one family, but of families across the country. These are some things which everyone must know, not for any other reason, but simply because these are basic tasks which are absolutely essential to survive. And, they make you capable to be equal partners tomorrow!

As Ariel raises an important question-is household work only a woman’s job? We need to ask ourselves the same question. A recent study revealed that the unpaid work done by women around the world amounted to 43 times the annual turnover of Apple Inc. It is high time we share the load and change the narrative that household work is the “duty” of a woman. As the video shows, contributing to the household work is not only a daughter’s work, but the son must contribute his bit too. It is also important for the parents to instil a sense of responsibility in their children, irrespective of their gender so that at any juncture of their lives, they are not completely dependent on another person for basic tasks like these. Ariel has been consistently driving this message and addressing the inequality within households since 2015. The Logical Indian applauds Ariel for coming up with such a brilliant video for depicting such an important concept.